Renegade Playground
by Fluidfyre
Summary: A story of vignettes following a renegade Myra Shepard. Prompts aren't chronological, deal with her choices, who she is, and the turian she could be falling for - god help her... / / The honest man must be a perpetual renegade.
1. Spar

N/B: This series of prompts follows a different Shepard than any of my other stories - Myra Shepard, renegade and Garrus as the romance potential - generally sticking to the Mass Effect 2 & Post ME2 timeline. Other details will come out in the story! They aren't in chronological order, but they all deal with the same 'story' of people as it were. They'll be of varying length, but generally be shorter than longer. Hope you enjoy!

As always, Mass Effect is the property of Bioware, as are all its characters - this is just me having fun with them, cuz they're too awesome.

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SPAR

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"Sure you don't want any armour?"

Stretching her hamstring, Shepard's head popped up to look at Garrus, "Always so cocksure."

Garrus was stripped down to a pair of shorts that hugged to his knees. With anyone else, he might have felt naked. It was only the two of them on the mats in the hold.

Shepard had set up the sparring ring almost the day after he'd mentioned the turian practise, encouraging the crew to help themselves. Seeing Jacob have his ass handed to him by the drell had been more than worth it - but when she summoned him down in the wee hours of the morning, he was as anxious as he was excited by it.

"Just doing my part to keep my commanding officer from harm." Garrus grinned in his turian way, eyes sparkling as he slipped his gloves on.

Hands on her lower back, Shepard's voice changed with her stretch, "Sure you don't want any armour?"

"I'm built with it, thanks."

Finally taking off her omni-tool, Shepard set it to play some music. She nodded her head in time with the beat as she stepped up to the mat.

"Agh, what is that crap?"

The music echoed through the space of the cargo hold, and Shepard sauntered to the centre of the mat, bobbing from foot to foot as she mentally prepared, "Just something to annoy you."

Garrus sunk into a stance opposite her and said, "Pretty sad you need that to try and beat me."

They paced around one another, eyes darting to track subtleties, predators sizing up the competition. Shepard slowly grinned through closed lips as they moved, evading but never pouncing. She gave her head a light shake, which Garrus mirrored, his mandibles flexing with his own amusement.

Exhaling out, Shepard hopped forward and sparked with a few snap kicks that Garrus easily deflected, catching the last. Talons a vice on her calf, he tried to force her direction, but she used the momentum to swing up into a wide crescent kick that caught him across the face.

Garrus swore as he let her go, and Shepard only smiled a moment as she flitted back on the balls of her feet, ever moving. His legs tensing, he answered in an attack, and keeping his balance low, caught her around the waist. Oofing with a puff of air as she hit the ground, they grappled, Shepard's knee caught between them, dug in against one of his plates.

Trying to gain upper body momentum, Shepard repelled Garrus, and his long leg braced across the matt, talons ripping in. Her free leg came with a snap into the vulnerable spot at his waist, and he rolled back.

Coughing, they were both on their feet in a second, parrying one another.

Chin up, Shepard asked, "Think the Alliance didn't instruct on turian vulnerabilities anymore?"

"Wishful thinking maybe," Garrus said, voice husky and quiet. "Can't use what they teach about humans in the turian military - you'd be dead."

A soft laugh clipped from Shepard as she went, "Yeah."

There was only the sound of their breathing, subsequent punches and kicks that snapped back and forth between them, the connect of force to muscle as they darted, and the 'thuck' of hits against Garrus' plating. Growling lightly, the turian swept and caught Shepard's legs, forcing his other foot down on her chest and pinning her under him.

"Fuck Garrus, my tit!"

"Huh?" In his moment's distraction, Shepard caught the spar on the back of his leg and pulled it with a quick jerk, and the turian buckled with a bark of pain. The woman rolled and kept it in her hand as she straddled his leg and pinned one of his arms too.

His breathing constricted, Garrus hissed, "Come on, fight fair."

"Why?" Shepard jostled with him as he tried to pull free, her muscles straining against his superior strength, but she pried the spur again and he near grovelled.

"I'm winning, what am I doing wrong?" Shepard leant her body into him, tensing her arm twined with his to keep him pinned, and she nipped at his cheek bone.

Grumbling again, Garrus tugged from her grasp, and Shepard got up onto her feet, shaking her limbs out. There was a slight glisten on her skin as she turned, large shoulders rolling. The turian's body ran hot, but it was a state they were accustomed too, and he regarded her with hawk's eyes as they moved against. He was favouring the leg she'd abused.

"Poor thing." Shepard whispered, dart from one of his advances and swinging a kick, which he blocked with matched ease. Emerging, a rivulet of blood dripped from a cut low over her breastplate.

"See? Should have some flex-weave or something, Shepard." Garrus shook his head as his arms dropped down, legs still tensed.

Faking a thrust kick, Shepard spun and jabbed towards the turian's abdomen, only to be caught in the roll of his arms and flipped to the ground. Receiving a mouthful of mat, the woman whined a bit, trying to manoeuvre her hips.

Anticipating the movement, Garrus kept a knee on her ass, pinning her leg down as he pulled her arm higher. Her blood smeared over the matt, and the turian's eyes sparkled.

"Come on, think every crook in C-sec didn't try some punch like that." Garrus twisted her arm more, weight leaning into her, keeping her immobilized. He snapped a talon over her kidney, and Shepard twitched with a groan. "Aren't you suddenly glad I fight fair."

"You shouldn't." Shepard tested her arm, words mangled from her cheek smushed against the ground. She tried to move her hips again, and Garrus pre-empted it, and she found both her legs restrained, arms neatly folded together behind her, still pinned down.

"There," Garrus said in a breath, "A neat little package."

"That's a compromising position if I've ever seen one." Kasumi's voice came from the ringside, and there was the pronounced click of a holo-recorder. Glancing the direction it came from, Garrus saw she was already gone, but it weakened his hold.

Tugging free of Garrus' grasp, Shepard was up on a knee, the other kicking up into his diaphragm, and he sharply coughed. Turning again, she planted a hand and vaulted to catch the good side of his face with the flattened edge of her foot. There was a smack and he grunted as he was knocked down.

"Thanks."

Staying on the ground, Garrus couldn't help but smirk, "Any time."


	2. Injection

The re-birthed Commander Shepard cycled to the next bottle, holding her arm steady as she easily manipulated the glass phials. With a soft click, it slid into place, and she quietly sighed as it was punctured and the dose flooded into her system. This one always burned in her veins.

Cloxoneprin. An anti-rejection medication to ensure that her implants and weaves took, and were absorbed without interference.

Shepard cycled to a different phial, the viscous fluid within a hazy shade of winter.

K-Panidrabin. Apparently something that lubricated cybernetic junctions.

Shepard remembered the names - sometimes. She had tried to grasp what each one in the small case of phials was responsible for. To understand how vital they were to her continued survival. Professor Solus had been kind enough to provide a synopsis for each of them. Cerberus had just told her to use them. The question of whether her body would adapt to all the synthetics that held her together was yet unanswered.

Shepard had always been sensitive to shifts in the chemistry of her body. It had saved her more than once in her youth, as a false-drugged stupor lowered the defence of her assailants. They hadn't had the opportunity to try anything with her again.

Each new addition to the permanent injection site in her arm added a new sensation. Somehow her body knew to keep her senses dulled from feeling all the modifications to her body. Shepard had catalogued them the first moment she had alone with her omni-tool after reaching the Minuteman Station.

One more. Fucaxanthol. She didn't remember what it did, but the sensation it would grant surfaced.

Locking the phial into place, Shepard closed her eyes, the cold steel oozing out, coursing through her core before it flickered into her fingertips. The mix within her cooled the rush of her pulse, and Shepard rolled her head backward. She felt whole now.

She was synthesized. Perhaps it should have bred some sympathy inside for the geth, or the husks they created. Shepard knew everyone avoided meeting her eyes, the once hazel-green flecked irises now marred by a subtly red glowing pattern. It made them easier to intimidate - easier to do as she said without question.

Everyone but Garrus.

Shepard slipped the phial from her arm, pressing it back into the case with a light snap. Snatching her long glove off the desk, she slid it back on and rolled down her sleeve.

What everyone ignored was the simple fact that she was part machine now. If she had been ruthless before, this hardened remnants of the softness inside. For while she had never imagined she had feared death, Shepard had certainly grown beyond it now.

Now she more closely matched something from the screaming Prothean visions that resurfaced every night in her dreams.

Meat and tubes.


	3. Tupari

Crossing her arms, Shepard waited for Garrus outside the shipping warehouse. After filling in some requisitions on the station, they were joining up to hopefully gather some information.

"Tupari, it's good for you!"

Shepard shifted her weight and looked at the ward with a blank stare. Where was he?

"Tupari, now made with 10% tupo berry and no natural sweeteners!"

Idly sighing, Shepard input a few things onto her omin-tool. Messages were coming in that she needed to deal with. More crap from more morons. But no, she was spending her afternoon waiting around for some vigilante turian. Shepard smiled to herself.

"I knew a man who went three days without a Tupari sports drink - he got hit by a shuttle!"

Furrowing her brow, Shepard turned to face the advertisement from the vending machine behind her. Maybe there was something lost in translation? It certainly wasn't a human company that made the drink.

"Tupari - brings your ancestors back from the grave!"

Shepard smirked and flipped a credit chit from the sleeve of her hardsuit, strolling up to the machine. She swiped the chit through the pay station, and there was the quiet sound of gears.

Well, their advertising worked at least. Maybe it'd be so great it'd keep her from dying of boredom while she waited for Garrus! Probably not.

"I'm sorry, please try again."  
Rolling her head back and forth to stretch her neck, Shepard idly swiped the credit chit again, only to be met with the same red blink of lights and verbal rejection.

"Only losers drink Paragrade - you want Tupari! Winners drink Tupari!"

Shepard narrowed her eyes at the machine as she switched for another credit chit. Another red light as she swiped it. Mildly frustrated, she sighed and got another chit, her last one. The machine blipped, and seemed it would accept it, when again, it only offered an apology and a flicker of a red light.

"12 Trillion bottles of Tupari are sold in a day. Where's yours? Oh that's right, it's inside me."

Snapping out her wrist, Shepard punched the machine, and the metal wobbled with the impact. "Goddamn machine."

Staring it down, she swiped the chit again, only to be rejected. Shepard put her hands on her hips as she checked if anyone was around, before hitting the machine again with the side of her fist.

"Commander Shepard drinks Tupari - don't you want to be like Commander Shepard (Commander Shepard is referenced under license from Alliance Military Recruitment Services)?"

"Oh you didn't just say that -" Shepard's eye twitched, and she was about to teach it a lesson when her comm blipped.

"Shepard - thanks for meeting with me." Garrus sauntered up, and seeing her standing by the vending machine went, "Oh Tupari! Man, I love that stuff."

Slipping a credit chit out, Garrus idly swiped it through the reader as he said, "One of the few drinks that caters to both of us, right? Tupo berries - how can you go wrong?" There was a bling of approval, and a green light appeared on the machine, before it dispensed a can of the sports drink.

Shepard's cheek jerked, and she stared down the machine a moment more. Clenching her lips in a fine line, Shepard grabbed Garrus' arm and gave him a shove, saying, "You kept me waiting. Let's go."


	4. Smoke

Shepard closed her eyes, holding the lungful of smoke deep within, and a dizziness slowly crept into her senses. A warm drink, a bath slipping over her skin, loosening her sore joints and fuzzing into her toes. Exhaling a plume out her nose, Shepard cleared her throat and looked at the cigarette in her hand before taking another deep pull.

It was the first she'd been able to get her hands on since her reanimation at the hands of the enemy. She could almost feel Lawson's gaze burrowing a hole into the back of her skull as she sullied their investment with the ichor.

The way it made her feel contributed to the grip it gave her on the situation - it reinforced the passage of time. She'd smoked for as long as she could remember. The gene therapy offered by the Alliance helped contribute to the resilience and regenerative capability of her lungs - but it had always felt the same. Her body was conditioned to the nicotine and to the constriction the smoke created, some sweetness that untied a knot inside rather than creating any uniqueness of its own.

But now it whispered a sigh in her limbs and strummed through her with an intimate caress, something wholly new that harkened back to her gritty childhood on Earth. It linked with a memory she couldn't dredge up, and it left her with a tingle between her thighs.

God, that it had ever been so good. This really was a lifetime away.

She sucked the cigarette down till the ash fell away, and in a fluid motion another was in her lips and lit. Pinched in her fingers, Shepard flecked the butt over the edge.

The rotten core of Omega stretched ahead of Shepard. Her jailors stood by, impatiently waiting for her signal to continue onward and catch the transport. The smell of her smoke mixed well with all those that inundated the senses. Grease and industry, the bodily and fecal odours of almost a dozen species, trash and rotting, natural and synthetic. All of it stale and steeped in the reality of the despair it perpetuated.

Tali had been right about the quiet of ships. In her years on Alliance cruisers Shepard had forgotten the unease she had felt when she first became a marine. Here at the end, the last, it seemed like all the dour sounds of the galaxy converged to grate and mash against each other.

Exhaust and strained filters whose fans filled the air with a thrumming, hummingbird heartbeat. Languages from passersby outside Afterlife added to the mix, foreign tongues that her translator couldn't touch. Puzzle pieces forced to fit together, all the while someone else waited to take your rung on the ladder.

Shepard closed her eyes again and drained the cigarette in quick, deep puffs that further tickled through her, sweet giddy poison.

It felt like home.

Holding the smoke, the second butt found its way over the edge with an expert flick of Shepard's middle finger. It seeped from her nostrils, a sleeping dragon.

"Let's go find this archangel."


	5. Darkness

The merc's gums flapped, and Shepard was tired of listening. Least it seemed he was done talking.

"I've got nothing more to say to you."

Tensing, Shepard launched herself at the man, catching him off guard. The Eclipse merc crashed through the wide window behind him, and his scream faded away as he tumbled down the stories to splatter unceremoniously on the roof of a squat, ground-level building.

"How about goodbye?"

Jack lowered her pistol and strolled up beside Shepard, peering into the darkness. She laughed, "Shit Shep, I swear every time we go kill people, I like you more and more."

Adjusting her hardsuit, Shepard checked her SMG and said with a sigh, "People make the mistake of thinking they got a quad when they barely got a pair."

Jack laughed again and Shepard smacked her shoulder as she turned to Garrus. The turian finished sweeping with the scope of his rifle and lowered the gun. Turning to the entrance of the tower's next floor, he stepped close to Shepard.

"Was that really necessary?"

Activating her combat drone and sending it to scout ahead, Shepard looked incredulously at Garrus, "Don't tell me you thought I should have spared him?"

"No, Commander, but..."

"Tell me, Garrus, do you know how many mercs you killed on Omega?"

They sank into cover as the drone sparked to life. Jack was perhaps ten feet away, and as she ripped them out of cover, both Shepard and Garrus popped up and shot the mercs.

"No - I don't know. Lots. I tried counting for a while."

"Why does it matter how bad people die?" Shepard spoke in a breath as she discharged a heat sink, and sent an incendiary charge towards another exposed Eclipse. "He died quickly, which probably is more than all these other people we shoot."

The man caught in the incendiary blast began screaming as it burnt through the thinner layers of his armour. He frantically tried to put himself out, with little success, and staggered blindly. Shepard advanced forward and shot him, a bullet shattering his helmet and allowing him to slump smouldering to the ground.

"Is that a better way to die?"

Garrus didn't offer a reply as they continued their assault, pushing forward through the mercenary clusters until they reached another elevator.

"Sometimes it just seems like we achieve ends through darker-than-necessary means. They deserve to die, they've chosen the life they lead." Garrus shrugged and exhaled loudly. Jack smirked at him, a comment under her breath before he added, "It's hypocritical of me."

"It isn't," Shepard replied tersely, hands clasped together over the grip of her SMG behind her back. "You know I look at the bigger picture. Yeah. I'm no white knight. But," They reached their floor, and she dropped into stance as the doors popped open," It's the darkness that defines where the light is."


	6. Sky

Standing in the busy markets of Illium, Commander Shepard's gaze stayed up - above the people and buildings, taking in the clarity of the sunlight and the rich hues of the clouds and sky.

"You know - people take that for granted."

One hand on his hip and one on the rail, Garrus' wandering eyes came back to Shepard, "Hmm?"

Shifting her weight, Shepard looked to Garrus, an odd optimism on her scarred face, "The sky. I never get tired of looking at it."

"Uh huh." Garrus regarded her with his own brand of turian smirk.

"Like those storms at the sea when we were on Virmire. They were like nothing I'd ever seen."

"There were often large summer storms where I grew up on Palaven. The thunder would shake everything."

Shepard looked at him with an odd grin.

"What? You grew up planetside, what's sky to you?"

"Everything." She quietly said.

Growing up in a megalopolis on Earth brought with it its own version of sky - when you actually saw it, anyway. Most days going outside was too hazardous for a person's health. The Reds hadn't cared about it too much though - but you could get almost anywhere through the subways, trains, and sky junctions.

A sky that wasn't bright, smog-washed into a sickly pus that obscured the sun and stars equally. A sky that burned the eyes and lungs equally, each breath hampered further, thickening instead of refreshing. The vids and advertisements in the street showed some blue beauty veneer, but they were just false promises.

Even the Alliance kept her from the beauty of a sky - stars were something else all together. When you saw them, anyway. The Normandy had been the first ship she'd been on that wasn't cram-packed and near windowless. Space was always at a premium to reduce overhead. A bed, a crate, munitions, or another system could go where breathing space or a window might.

Shepard knew what luxury she flew in when she sat with Kasumi, both their eyes on the dark void as they chatted.

"We should go hang gliding some day. I've read about some good places on Elysium or Mindoir." Shepard laughed dryly, "If we survive, anyway."

Garrus looked at her a little vacantly.

"They strap you to a large pair of wings and you glide over the landscape... just you and the sky." Shepard crossed her arms, "Well, that's what I've seen. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm sure we can throw you out of the Kodiak sometime when we're coming in to land?"

"So sweet of you."

"What can I say?" Garrus stretched, "I'm just a sweet guy."

They turned as Miranda approached, her eyes lightly rimmed in a glisten of tears. The Cerberus agent turned and waved to the young woman across the way, smiling more warmly than she ever had, "Alright. I'm ready to go."


	7. Wager

Shepard put her face in her hands, a deep grumble in her throat as Holland and Matthews high-fived one another. She could not believe they had tried to run it. No only had they tried to run it, but Fazah hadn't brain enough to hold onto the ball - so he'd caused a turnover.

"So Commander, 1000 creds, wasn't it?"

From where he sat, Garrus smirked, staying more for some entertainment at human watching than to try and understand the Earth sport that was on. So far he'd seen screaming, cheering, and near crying. Maybe Cerberus wasn't so bad - there'd never been anything like this on the old Normandy.

"There's still 15 seconds left, Holland."

On the vid screen the commotion died down as trainers rushed onto the field.

"He's completely faking, just delaying the game." Matthews shook his head, drinking the rest of his beer.

"I'm a patient man." Holland said.

All they needed was a point to tie it. All they had to do was get the ball through and out of the end zone. In truth, they'd only needed to get the down at the 50 to kick it, something that could be done with a second or two. But no. They didn't even have the ball anymore.

Her stubborn-ass nature wouldn't let her admit defeat till there was no chance left a t all. Ever the poker face, Shepard leant forward onto her knees as the players lined up.

Garrus leaned towards her, "So can your team win?"

"Shh!"

"I just have no idea what they're doing."

Shepard looked at the turian with an exasperated sigh, but then the ball was snapped. A triumphant cheer from the two Cerberus crewman snapped her eyes back to the screen. The ball was in the air, high and long with a sweet spiral. A furrow knitted her brow.

Looking as though the lofty through were going to land right in the receiver's hands, the cornerback leapt into view and plucked it right out of the air. Shepard was on her feet, and she cackled as the player rushed it back. He past the centre line and with a smile, she tossed her empty beer can, and it ricocheted off Holland's head.

"Suck that," Shepard sneered.

In position for easy points, they lined up the field goal and won the game as the clock ran out.

Taking her crewman's creds, Shepard coolly said, "Let that be your lesson for the day."

"Never bet against you?"

Shepard laughed, "Hah, sure - but nothing's a lost cause. Garrus," She patted the turian on the head, "Let's go call my bookie."


	8. Lattice

LATTICE

Dr. Chakwas stood at the haptic terminal and scrolled through the data, while beside her Mordin prepared the extensive lattice.

"It should provide you with a considerable boost to your regenerative capabilities, Commander, in addition to serving as conduits for medi-gel to flow directly to your musculature."

Shepard nodded as she stripped out of her civvies, revealing the equally complex lattice of scarring that covered much of her body. Here and there a subtle red glow showed through where the cybernetics that sustained her neared the skin. The spider web upon her cheek was one of the worst, though a similar stretch of glowing laced down her forearm where her permanent injection site was.

"I'll be able to give you a sedative that will help block the pain, but unfortunately we do need you lucid as a precaution. The procedure shouldn't cause any harm, but it is best to monitor nerve function."

"Don't worry, doc, I've been through worse I'm sure." The bone weave nano-injections she had received into her marrow came to mind.

Shepard tossed the last bit of clothing away and slid up onto the minimal surgical table. There was the tingle in her arm as the narcotic was injected, and it slipped down her spine, blossoming out into her fingertips. Resting her head back into the cradle, she closed her eyes and focused down upon her breathing.

"All right, Shepard. We'll do our best to get through as quickly as possible."

"Just do the right job, rather than have to do it twice."

With the doctor's regrettable chuckle came the first incision and prick of the wide needle used, and Shepard's breath caught in her throat. Crawling and digging, the lattice was wormed into her tissues with precise efficiency, though each addition brought an ache and burning, even as her senses dulled away more.

There was no further noise from the Commander as she fell into a near trance, all focus there upon each breath, a steady in and out to keep her thoughts away from the manipulations of her flesh. It was rending and sharp, and she could feel the weakness it brought into her limbs, even supplemented by medi-gel and other restorative injections they added.

Working in tandem, both the Professor and Dr. Chakwas inserted the lattice shunting into her deep tissues, and though medi-gel was readily there sealing the surgical wounds, it couldn't completely numb away the sharp ache it they left behind. Time flowed together, her limbs moved and prodded, more scars added to Shepard's repertoire with each stroke of the blade.

With great care, they helped her flip, heavy and weak limbs turning to dangle over her head so the lattice could be inserted down her back. This work took time, with special care needed along her spine. Shepard's head pounded as she tried to steady her breath, the length of the ordeal taking its toll.

Don't be a pussy.

She could hear the drill sergeant from basic in her head, a verbal grinding that she'd been subjected to more than once. It steeled something inside. Every instance where she hadn't let the weakness show. It wrapped into a tight ball inside, and once more, another layer was added as her breath seeped from her slow and even.

Finally, only the cooling presence of medi-gel was left coating much of her body, and they applied dermal bandaging to ensure full recovery. Watery, muted words drew Shepard from the solitude in her mind.

"Commander Shepard? Shepard - come."

Shepard's head lifted and she breathed more deeply, regretting the sudden movement, but she played it off.

"Let's get you to your cabin for rest. Twelve hours in bed, and you'll be fit to resume training tomorrow."

"I'm fine." Shepard asserted, realizing she was already up on her feet. Mordin caught her arm.

"No use playing tough. Best stay here, heal under watchful eyes."

"No. I don't do that." Shepard croaked, parched. "Doc knows that."

Dr. Chakwas chuckled as she helped Shepard into a loose long-sleeved shirt and black cotton pants. "Yes, only get to keep you if you aren't conscious. Though I wish you would stay."

Shepard shook her head, nodding to Mordin as he handed her a glass of water. Draining it, she followed up, "I'm only a few floors away. I'm sure EDI will tell you if I'm dying." Her head was swimming and her limbs screamed at her movement - but it was just more of her training in the end, endurance and gumption to force herself through it. "Just give me something for the pain. I can have that now, right?"

"Of course, Shepard." A phial was soon in her grasp and injected into the site on Shepard's arm, and Dr. Chakwas said, "You should have a few minutes."

Shepard nodded, cheeks gaunt and pallor ghastly as she turned and walked with careful control towards the med bay doors. It was late, the scant night shift up on the CIC looking after the ship's movement as they traversed in FTL between systems. The lights in the mess were low, and she was thankful for the lack of people to see her move so feebly.

The sedative painkiller was starting to kick in as Shepard slunk near the elevator, and her odd-timed steps must have attracted attention. She could scarce move her arms, and as the door opened, she slumped, only to find herself caught - and suddenly in acute pain from the pressure on her skin.

"Ahh fuuckah."

"Shepard - sorry." Garrus said and quickly released her, the pressure he'd given helping keep her upright her as she stumbled into the elevator. "Are you alright?"

"Late night surgery," She flatly said, cradling her arms to her body as she looked up at him. "Come to poke fun at the weakling?"

Garrus' mandibles flexed, and he seemed at a loss before saying, "No - just couldn't sleep... and heard someone clumping to the elevator. Didn't sound right."

Shepard almost grinned, her senses dulling further as she swayed, and Garrus reached out to tentatively catch her again. It hurt but she swallowed it, looking up at him.

"Thanks bud."

Garrus coughed and said, "Do uh, do you need help or anything?" As though to test, he removed his hand, and Shepard began to slide again. He stepped into the elevator, pushing the button for her cabin and murmured, "Yeah."

It took some effort to help Shepard out of the elevator and over to her bed, but Garrus did it without hurting her anymore - at least as far as he could tell.

Sat on the bed, Shepard's limbs hung uselessly, and she looked up to Garrus through a dream filter, "You know, you're about my best friend in the whole galaxy."

Moving her almost like a doll, Garrus laughed briefly, tucking her into bed before he admitted, "I'd say you're the same, Shepard."

"Myra," Shepard whispered, "Call me Myra when it's just us."


	9. Archangel

The heavy blast of mounted gatling guns shook the building, and steadying herself, Shepard shot the last Blue Sun merc in the head. The roar of the automatic weaponry upstairs echoed through the wide space. Shepard turned and vaulted up the stairs, sprinting to the nest Garrus had held over the bridge with Mordin and Miranda in tow. At the doorway, all three were forced into cover as the gunship's targeting swept their way and riddled the walls with dents and scorch marks.

"Garrus?"

There came no reply as Shepard unpacked her rocket launcher. Making contact with her team, she motioned to their cover with a quick gesture, and as the gunfire clicked quiet to reload, they darted into the room.

Shepard was able to get three rockets off, and the gunship's shielding fluttered as she dove into cover. The hail of bullets peppered the shielding above her head, and she sunk on her ass to avoid it. Looking left, she could see the blue-on-blue battered body of her friend in arms.

Popping up in time with Miranda, Shepard met her attack with one of her own, hand alight on her omni-tool to overload the ship's shields. A module farther back on the gunship burst, sparks flying as it veered away, trailing smoke.

"Mercs on our three." Shepard rolled into better cover, narrowly avoiding a warp in the fabric of space. She could feel it tug at something inside. Panting from the long fight, she leant out of cover onto a knee and deployed her drone.

The gunship surfaced behind them, precise gatling shots whizzing past the mercenaries to crack into the concrete pillars and rip over the sofa Shepard crouched behind. The last Blue Sun flew out the window via Miranda's biotics.

Standing again, Shepard steeled herself and propped the rocket launcher on her shoulder. Riddled by the automatic bullets, she sent another trio of missiles at the gunship, and a last one as her shield drained.

Still damaged from its previous encounter with Archangel, the missile hit home and the propulsions systems ignited. The building shook as the gunship exploded, pieces flying in all directions and leaving a mask of black smoke over the window.

Locking the rocket launcher on her back, the hard veneer of Shepard's scarred face cracked as she knelt down beside her fallen comrade.

There was a lot of blood, its slick sheen as saturated a royal blue as the turian's pot-marked armour. Shepard put a hand onto his arm as Mordin lifted his omni-tool for a medical scan.

And then Garrus gasped, a sound like a drowning man breaking the surface of swift river. His eyes opened, and the grip on his sniper rifle renewed as Shepard leant over him.

"Garrus!"

Gurgling in his throat, Garrus' legs moved, and Shepard pressed a hand on his chest to stop him.

"We're getting you out of here, Garrus. Just hold on."

Wide eyes falling closed, Garrus' head lolled as Mordin injected a medi-gel into the trauma module of his hardsuit.

"Radio Joker. Make sure they're ready for us."

"He's not going to make it."

Shepard didn't look at the woman, "Miranda, rip the back panel off that console."

"Good call, Shepard. Must take care."

The creak of rent metal echoed through the now quiet building as Miranda retrieved the slat of metal. Taking the makeshift backboard, the three of them followed Mordin's instructions and gingerly moved the heavy turian onto the metal. Armour clad fingers working with care, Mordin administered another few drugs, and Garrus mandible trembled with pain.

"Come on, Garrus. You pull through and I swear I'll never drive the MAKO again."

A single wet laugh shuddered the turian's body, only to be followed by bloody heaves as he slipped out of consciousness. Together, they lifted at Shepard's command to carry him to the transport shuttle.


	10. VI

"Tali, thanks for putting your neck out on this one."

The quarian shook her head, comparing numbers as they crouched by Shepard's terminal in her personal quarters. "I can't believe I agreed to it."

Garrus sniggered and finished the last bit of calibrating before he asked, "Okay try that."

At Tali's touch, a small holographic figure in N7 armour flickered to life over the terminal and said, " -lo ... mmand... ard." It fizzled out.

"Ahha! Here."

Standing up, Garrus brought the holo VI back to life, and the miniature Commander Shepard stood there a moment before asking, "What do you want? Stop wasting my time."

Tali put a hand to her mask as she tried to stifle her laughter.

"Ahm, nothing, thank you."

The VI of Shepard shrugged and said, "Yeah, I should go."

"Mr. Vakarian, the Kodiak has begun docking procedures."

Giving Tali a push, Garrus scrambled up to his feet.

"You're a terrible influence, Garrus." Tali let herself be ushered towards the door, eyes sparkling.

"You like getting under her skin just as much as I do."

"Maybe."

Safe in the confines of the elevator, the two hoodlums took it down to the mess and snuck off to safety.

Meanwhile a deck below, Shepard was just getting on. Zaeed and Jack by her side, she wiped the sweat and blood from her eyes as they went their respective ways, leaving her alone to ascend up to the loft.

Walking into her quarters, she turned on her private terminal and began to undress.

"I'm a busy woman - do you need something?"

Stopping in the midst of removing her chest plate, Shepard turned back around to the terminal.

"Obviously want to listen to my messages, else I wouldn't have executed the command."

"Might want to try that with a little less lip." The small VI drew its SMG and charged a sink.

Snorting, Shepard let her chest plate drop back on as she murmured, "You've got to be kidding me."

"Just shut up and get to the point."

Furrowing her brow and coughing, Shepard crossed her arms and glared down at the small replica of herself. The VI was almost in the same pose, weight on the back foot.

"EDI, who's been in my quarters?"

"Great, just wasting my time." The VI turned away with an exasperated sound, "I need a drink."

"No one that does not have authorization."

Shepard's eyes narrowed as she murmured, "Garrus."


	11. Identity

Shepard slammed a hand against the closed door of the small bathroom. The almost imperceptible movement of the FTL drive thrummed through her body, limbs, muscles and skin all aching in a way she could have never imagined.

She'd been captured by the enemy. For all she could care, she could've woken up half geth. How long had the black man said - two years? She could still smell the burning optical cabling, feel the tell-tale snap of Joker's arm in her hand, and...

The hum of the engines mimicked Shepard's own quiet pulse in her veins. It was strong and steady, her lungs were clear, and her eyes ached like she'd not seen light in months. Her skin was taut like a drum, and she grew yet more alien from there.

Her breasts were more pert than she ever remembered, her teeth were in the wrong places - her tongue kept feeling over them, some foreign things half disconnected. The world had a frightening clarity, she could focus closer and farther at the same time, and there were colours she had never seen before.

The body she was in knew that two years had gone by.

Leaning her hands onto the sink, Shepard retched into the basin, dry heaving after what little there was voided. Weakness trembled through her, and like a draft it swept in and gave the fire life.

She'd woke and just ran into the fight. You live for the fight when it's all you've known - when it's all that you've got. To wake into a fight when her ship had been crumbling.

Running the water, Shepard cupped it to her mouth, rinsing away the acidic taste clinging on the insides of her cheeks. Finally satisfied, she drank a few handfuls despite her stomach's gurgling. The ache in her jaw deepened and spread behind her nose and eyes, a hurt like a torn ligament used before it could fully heal. Another wave of vertigo hit her, and she laid her forehead down on the metal sink, bent over it to keep her balance.

What had they fucking done to her?

Shepard cracked open the seam of her hard suit, turning to squirm out of all the pieces as fast as she could, piling them on top of the toilet. Down into the skin tight cotton grubs, her stomach shrank away and left the inside of her hardened but empty. She gasped in pain as she pulled her shirt off too, seeing a barrage of uneven wounds and scarring all over her skin.

But beyond, that it was all smooth in a way it should never have been. Nevermind smooth - it was depthless. It was skin and tissue and whatever lay beneath, but the art and names that had become part of her identity were gone.

Shepard pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, hand smoothing up her left ribs. The shredder rounds had hit there on Torfan. Over the scar, she'd had ink done the moment she was out of the medical ward. Intricate details wrought by century trained asari hands to document each of her team, their names becoming the lines that comprised the Edge pistol that she'd favoured.

She twisted and turned in the mirror, pulling her skin to see each inch of herself, see each part that had been erased in her remake; the N7-Alliance coat of arms was gone; a bland curve over the top of her right breast was all that remained of the first needle she ever remembered, the Reds, their circle star motif only a memory; her back, the jagged stump of a broken wing that had taken all the creds from her first two paycheques, its bone-exposed bloody tear replaced by the simple normality and curve of muscle; the roiling clouds that pealed down from it, added after a ground assault through a plasma storm, the ink turian-made to always leave a sting. Each little detail from her limbs was gone too, pieces of her history and soul wiped clean.

If they'd tried so hard to erase her, why could she remember it all? Did she remember it all? Or more clearly? How could anyone's consciousness be salvaged after so long? Maybe they were only a body.

Two years.

If you wake up at a different time in a different place - did you wake up as a different person?

Shepard shuddered a little, putting her heated forehead back on the cool metal sink again. She didn't know where they were taking her, and she almost didn't care. She'd blasted through a base of mechs to escape in the shuttle with them - but they were Cerberus.


	12. Obedience

"Well if it isn't No-hips Taylor." Shepard grinned without her teeth, seeing the Cerberus soldier approach. Jacob offered a dry laugh, unamused. She had taken up the nickname shortly after Garrus had come on board the Normandy, the familiarity of her old teammate adding fuel to her already fiery demeanour.

"I guess so, Commander."

Shepard turned, a gloved hand pressing up under her nose as she sniffed in more deeply. She'd escaped into the markets of Illium to find the object of her desire. Seems she'd snorted just in time, the sharp pang in her bloodstream stinging in her nostrils.

"There something I can help you with, Mr. Taylor?" Shepard rested her hands down on her hips, sniffing one last time.

"Just checking in, Illium isn't the safest place."

Barking a laugh, Shepard crossed her arms and turned back to the man. "Checking up on me, more like it."

"Naw, it's not like that."

Her voice lost the toying edge, "Don't fuck with me, Jacob."

His breath catching in his throat, Jacob stiffened and clasped his hands together behind him.

"I know she sent you after me." Shepard cracked her shoulder back, her reddened eyes focusing on the horizon, "That she wants tabs kept, she wants to know where I go, what I do, who I meet."

"Miranda's just doing her job, Commander."

"Maybe that's what I don't like about it," Icy words met his attempt at compromise.

"She spent a lot of time on you."

"I didn't ask her to." Shepard shifted her weight. Even as her veins sang, his presence contributed a souring note. "I know Cerberus wants me to be, but I won't be a faithful, obedient dog."

"You're important, Shepard - so people look out for you. Wanna make sure you're at the peak of your game."

Shaking her head, Shepard shucked a cigarette from the slot in her hardsuit, lighting it on her lips in a fluid motion. Her pulse throbbed in her temples, rushing faster in her veins as the hit took deeper hold. The world was growing saturated, brighter, with harsher edges and contrasts.

"Everyone keeps telling me I'm in charge, this is my show, that people will follow orders." The cigarette was gone in a quick few puffs, and Shepard ground the butt into the palm of her hand, looking at Jacob as she did, "But somehow, there's still those who think treating me like a child or some tech they can tweak will go unnoticed."

Jacob's posture was still rigid as he shifted his feet, almost speaking again, but Shepard moved with precise haste and caught the scruff of his uniform. Slamming him back against the edge of the railing, Shepard leant her weight into him as his hand scrambled to keep hold. The wind caught up the side of the building, and she exhaled a breath of smoke that was easily swirled away in it. The man's biotics almost flared, but his control held.

"If I catch you following me again when I haven't assigned you to - when I haven't taken you on a mission with me - I'll make you regret it, Taylor."

The man met her gaze with unflinching resolve, and he almost scoffed. "Maybe if you left behind the vices, they wouldn't be breathing down your neck."

Shepard shook her head, veins screaming their own symphony, calling her away. She wanted to knock him around, she wanted to knee him in the crotch, she wanted to just let go and watch him fall into the shadows of the under city. He wasn't that good a soldier, and not that good a biotic either. She already had better of both.

"You are replaceable," Shepard shoved him aside, spitting out the ashen taste in her mouth. "And you aren't my friend. So fuck off back to the Normandy and do your job. Our armaments need prepping for the mission tonight."

The Commander didn't watch as he hesitated and finally relented, slipping back the way he'd came. Sighing out, she leaned her hands forward onto the wide railing. She still had time before they met Seryna.

She listened to the song.


	13. Similarities

"How are you holding up?"

Shepard's lips pressed into a grim line as she ran her hands up over the edge of Garrus' bandage. It had been a few hectic days since the Collectors had made off with the crew, and they were alone in med-bay as Shepard took up the duty of tending to his still recovering injuries. Garrus was stripped to the waist.

"Pretty pissed, to say the least." Shepard passed the infrared probe over the edges of the bandage and the adhesive in them released. Her voice dropped, but still had the same intensity, "The Collectors keep messing with me - and just drives me harder. Fuck them sideways till next century."

Garrus chuckled and cringed as she delicately applied the astringent to the wound, followed by an organo-synthetic product that encouraged his tissues to graft to the cybernetic auditory system that was now his right ear. The gel soaked in and made the nerve endings burn.

"They won't know what hits them." Garrus replied.

"They sure won't," Shepard murmured, a brush in her hand as she applied a powder over the silver glowing cybernetic. The lights flickered and shifted, and putting the brush aside, she touched over the metal with her gloved hand.

Tensing at the magnified scraping, Garrus made a sound before he said, "You know, I can hear that really well."

"Hah - sorry." Shepard dropped her hand, smirking as she looked to his eyes, "Just never seen it."

"Here I thought you'd be more interested in seeing me shirtless." Garrus mandibles flexed as he adjusted his posture.

Shepard grinned, "Not properly swooning, am I?" She ran a hand down his knee, leaning in, "Oh Garrus, you're so brute and manly out of your armour."

Laughing, Garrus cringed a little and cleared his throat, saying, "Right - will you put that medi-gel on already?"

Shepard's eyes lost their playful glint, and she gingerly applied some medi-gel to the area, before cutting a new length of dermal bandage.

"I didn't mean you couldn't - it's just the air - ah." Garrus closed his right eye as she smoothed the bandage over, and the edges adhered to his warm skin. Even with her gloves, its texture was almost like kidskin, soft and giving, but tough in its own right.

"I know," Shepard grinned again, her scarring making the expression almost garish - but he could see through it. "Just thinking of the similarities." She motioned to her cheek.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Shepard put aside the medical implements, and she licked her lips before saying, "I'm going to set course for the relay. I don't think there's anything else we can do to prepare, and they have the crew."

Garrus' eyes cleared from their besotted stare, and they focused on Shepard, "I couldn't agree more."

"So come by my cabin en route?" Shepard's lips pursed together, trying to conceal a grin.

"Uh, yeah - definitely."

For a moment, the shadow that clung to Shepard's features lifted, but it seeped in, and she was out the door. Garrus touched over his bandages, staring at the closed door as his thoughts raced.

He needed to change.


	14. Payback

"Ow, that's tight."

"Yea, well I don't want you getting away." Shepard purred, securing the restraint on Garrus' wrist.

"Not sure I'd want to if I could."

Their foreheads touched as Shepard ground her hips into him, and a quiet groan rumbled in Garrus' throat. Down to just her panties, she straddled his waist, teasing her hands along his body, paying heed to sensitive spots that brought more sound from his throat.

Shepard's thighs slid against Garrus' narrow waist, and his head turned to nip at her skin. She chuckled as his jaw tightened, keeping her close to him. In kind, she twisted and bit into the softer skin low on his neck, and Garrus writhed into her. The bonds keeping his arms back squeaked as he pulled them taut.

Chuckling pitifully, Garrus closed his eyes as he whispered, "You're killing me, here."

"Not if I can help it."

Hips grinding again, it was only the thin cotton of Shepard's panties separating them. Tensing her jaw in another quick bite, it brought a low growl from Garrus. Letting go, she breathed a sigh by his ear, cheek nestled to his mandible as she ran a hand back over his fringe.

"I think I like you this way, get to do whatever I want."

Mouth opening to reply, Garrus' words were lost as her teeth clipped his neck again, and Shepard reached between them to stroke down his pinned arousal. He involuntarily pulled, and the bed creaked, leaving him only able to move his knees at the tension she was mounting in him. She'd gotten good at touching him just right, attentive to explorative touches that brought a response from him.

"I got something for us."

Garrus opened his eyes halfway, breathing deep as she touched him, "Something more than this?" He groaned again, straining for her touch as she dismounted and was on her feet. His blood ran hot, and he watched her waist and hips sway.

Glancing back, Shepard waggled her brow, unable to escape looking devious the way her scars glowed. She turned on the vid screen that served as the glass for her display case. Garrus quirked a brow.

Shepard ducked away into the washroom as the vid came on.

"What is this?" Garrus called, legs shifting with his discomfort.

The words 'Special Delivery' waffled onto the screen in a cheesy squiggle of text.

"A porn I picked up."

Garrus narrowed his eyes at the poor video quality, and the camera angle zoomed in towards a door, outside of which stood an elcor.

"Uh, Myra?"

In another moment she stepped out of the bathroom, clad in her skin-tight sparring outfit. Garrus felt the blood drain from his face, even as his loins still throbbed.

"Yea? Thane asked me for a spar earlier. I'm going down to meet him. Wish me luck!" Shepard turned, stopping only as Garrus cried out.

"Shep- You're just leaving me here?"

Offering a devil-may-care grin, Shepard looked back to him as she motioned to her private terminal, "Maybe it'll teach you to leave my tech alone."

Unable to offer any smart-ass reply, Garrus could only watch as Shepard jauntily left the cabin. His gaze was invariably drawn back to the screen as the door opened to show a scantily clad asari.

"Hello?"

"Eagerly; I have a big sausage pizza delivery."

With a groan, Garrus tried to free himself from his bonds with renewed vigour.


	15. Morals

"Do you even know what Cerberus will do with it?"

Shepard shook her head, stopping immediately at the pain, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth. She leant her head into her hand to support it. A web of dermal bandage descended the nape of her neck and disappeared under her uniform.

"They could do a lot of terrible things."

"You think I don't know that?" She shot a glance at Garrus, pulling to her feet. Her left leg was encased in a walking brace. Shepard ran a hand over her eyes. "There is a war coming unlike anything anyone in the galaxy has ever seen, or probably even imagined, Garrus."

Shepard's voice croaked as she wavered, leaning back against the console in the battery, "The Reapers won't have any honour or mercy. No prisoners taken, no peaceful talks or conventions. They seek genocide.

"We need to take any advantage presented."

Garrus stayed sitting on the cot as he watched her, and his head dropped down. "I know. It just feels wrong."

Shepard stared blankly out of the battery, her eyes even more unsettling in the wake of their great fight. Part of the cybernetics in her right eye had been damaged, causing it to glow less brightly than the other.

"The things the Collectors were doing... the crew we lost."

Snagging the thermos off Garrus' console, Shepard turned and spiked it against the opposite wall. The glass inside shattered with a muted sound. She grunted at the pain of her movement, and Garrus was there to catch her arm as she nearly pummelled the console. Hissing out a breath, she looked up to him, and flowing with combative grace, redirected a new punch at him. He deflected it, trapping her arms against him.

"The things done there - I fucking know how sick it was." Shepard tensed in his arms, and Garrus pinned her back against the console with a growl. "She may have been a bubbly git, but I saw Chambers get liquefied right before my own eyes."

"I know..."

Shepard cussed a breath and broke his arm lock, brace clumping as she stepped away. The light in her faulty eye flickered as she glared back at Garrus, hands on her hips, "Tens of thousands of innocent, probably good people. Better than I'll ever be. Normal lives, with children and homes.

"And in their memory, I gave the base to a terrorist group that likes playing god." Shepard rested the back of her hand across her mouth, voice cracking again, "In this war, morals aren't a luxury I have."

Shepard turned to leave the battery, but Garrus sidestepped and caught her arm again. She looked at him and cringed with the movement, cupping the back of her head.

"Shep - Myra..." Garrus loosened his grip as he saw she was staying. "None of this was at you. It's..." He sighed, "It's horrific."

"It's a drop in the bucket compared to what could be." Shepard closed her eyes at the memory of her visions. Trillions of lives on hundreds of worlds. "It's my job to make these choices."

Shepard touched the controls to shut the door, her face drawn, "Once we're back through the relay, I plan to have a service for the crew and colonists."

Garrus linked an arm around Shepard's shoulders and pulled her into him. Closing his eyes, he rested the bridge of his nose atop her head and breathed her in.

"Seems like the right thing to do."

"It is," Garrus quietly said, running a hand over her shoulder. They stood like that for a while, before he added, "Maybe Cerberus is able to do some good."

"That's my hope."

Garrus squeezed her closer, looking up as he spoke, "They brought you back, right?"


	16. Repent

"The Protheans cast off the lesser races: the krogan, the vorcha, and the humans! And so they dwell in filth, on worlds made of dirt and faeces - and there they lay until they stumbled into the skies."

Taking her credit chit back from the elcor merchant, Shepard turned at the distant sound of the voice, wandering out of the shop with Garrus and Jack in tow. The turian turned towards another shop as Shepard walked farther.

"The lesser races will be our downfall! The Word is clear!"

Shepard adjusted her hardsuit as she stepped into the small crowd standing before a batarian preaching on a crate.

"Let none in my sight continue to live, lest their impurity displease me."

The frown on Shepard's face deepened as she watched the man on the box sweep a hand amongst the humans gathered there. There were few other races present.

"The Word is clear on this, friends. Humans are the hands of the Reapers, here to commit the galaxy ruin."

A scoff caught in Shepard's throat, and she looked at the man beside her as he spoke.

"You're crazy!"

"Begone! Sinner, I cast you out into the cold black! I name you unclean!" The prophet's eyes swept through the crowd, hand leading the damning glance. Pointing at Shepard, he proclaimed, "You! You are a blight!"

Pushing the man beside her out of her way, Shepard stepped up to the crate, and cracking her shoulder back she said, "Want to come down here and say that?"

Jack's eyes glittered over her shoulder.

The mad prophet was unfazed by her growing proximity, and he kept a hand pointed her way, "The end times are upon us, sinner - repent and restore your soul to glory!"

Shepard snagged the bottom of his shirt, pulling him down to her level. The crate tipped under the weight shift and he stumbled to the ground as she hissed, "They might stand by while you throw us in with the vorcha - while you try to smear humans in the mud, but not me."

"I know my place, and can see how you dip in the well of sin and vice - to neglect!"

The crowd scattered back with a murmur as Shepard pushed the man back over his crate, and the batarian tumbled to try and gain his footing.

"You know nothing about the Reapers."

"Why would I - we are not their pawns in -"

His words were cut off by a pistol shot, and the prophet screamed as his kneecap burst under the bullet. He collapsed under the pain, his leg useless, and growled as he looked at Shepard, "You only prove your mettle - the Word makes its demands - and it demands obedience! See how you follow!"

A warp of biotic energy enveloped the man, tossing and pinning him against the wide pipes behind him, and Jack grinned as Shepard looked her way. The remnants of the crowd scattered father beyond reach, unwilling to entirely run, keen to see what would transpire.

Fear took in the batarian's eyes, and he tried to move, only succeeding in opening the wound on his leg more, and the blood spattered to the ground below him. Scarce fazed, Shepard tilted her pistol and shot him in the throat.

Jack stepped over the bloody puddle to join Shepard's side. Sputtering for air, the prophet collapsed to the ground as Garrus jogged up. Shepard holstered her pistol and snagged his arm, pulling him along.

"We're done here."


	17. Firsts

Shepard couldn't keep the grin from her face as she reached to turn off the music, listening to her favourite turian rambling and betraying his nerves.

"I just... I've seen so many things go wrong, Shepard. My work at C-sec, what happened with Sidonis..."

Turning back, Shepard met his wandering gaze, smile softening in ways no others would see.

"I want something to go right. Just once. Just..."

Shepard stroked down over the bandage and damaged mandible on the right side of Garrus' face, and he tilted into her hand. Their foreheads touched, and his chin tucked down as he ran a hand up her arm, plying her shoulder in his three fingers.

"I don't know how you make me so nervous." Garrus' voice rumbled low in his throat as he let his hand continue up her neck, his eyes still down to follow the caress.

Shepard ran her fingers down into his other hand, and Garrus lifted it for inspection, using the wine bottle to hold it aloft. "Not uncomfortable?"

"No - no never uncomfortable." Garrus smiled in his turian way as their eyes met, and Shepard tugged her hand away, fingers over his uninjured mandible, "Least not in any bad way."

He closed his eyes and she used the opportunity to slip the visor off.

"Mph."

"So is the wine for you or me?"

Garrus laughed briefly, and Shepard stepped in closer, their foreheads touching once more as he said, "Me, I guess - really didn't think that one through."

"It's sweet of you anyway." Shepard leant up to kiss what might constitute his upper lip, and his mandibles twitched. "I hope that's not odd for you." She laughed lightly, taking the bottle from his hand.

"Kissing... I ah - I've seen it, never really thought about it." Garrus turned to follow her down the stairs as she walked to the table, "No, I thought about it. Logistically, I have no idea. And I'm rambling again."

Shepard snagged a glass and filled it with the wine, hand it back to him before turning to her own stash. Retrieving a single malt from the cabinet, she poured a small glass. "It's always been part of your charm. You know that."

"I do? Of course." Garrus took a deep sip of the wine and cleared his throat, "Just one of the many services I offer."

Tilting her head aside, Shepard smiled again, drifting farther from the weight of her armour and the sound of gunfire into some foreign place she had scarce let herself tread. "Services, huh? And now my turian gigolo?"

Garrus sputtered as he finished his wine, coughing but swallowing most of it. He wiped a hand over his chest to smear away what he'd spilt, muttering, "Walked myself into that one. Can dress myself up, but can't take me out."

Shepard laughed lightly and downed the amber liquid in her glass before taking his own and setting them aside. "Then let's dress you down and keep you in."

"You've already seen me topless, She-" Garrus caught himself, "Myra."

Shepard smiled, "Saying I show you mine, and you'll show me yours?"

Coughing, Garrus met her eyes as Shepard ran her hands over his chest, and he murmured, "I think anyone else, that'd get me slapped. Or worse."

"No telling anyone I didn't." Shepard whispered, her hands already to the zipper of her uniform, before they turned on Garrus, caressing down his waist, "Can't have it getting around that I've got a soft spot."

"Your secret's safe with me," he purred, dipping his face into her soft neck.


	18. Hammerhead

"The map shows it should be just around the corner." Shepard walked with her omni-tool lit, and coming into the bunker, saw the vehicle waiting. "Well - doesn't that look pretty."

Garrus reached to snag her shoulder, "Think because I was half dead I didn't hear what you said?"

Glancing at Garrus, Shepard appraised the vehicle as she laughed, "What?"

"You swore to me on Omega you'd never drive again."

Sucking a breath through her teeth, Shepard's eyes flicked from Legion to Garrus before she said, "I swore I'd never drive the _MAKO _again - I don't see a MAKO. Do you?"

"Right, because driving around on a volcanic world in a vehicle with better hovering capacity, no wheels, and some kind of nitro boosters, is supposed to lull me into a false sense of security about your piloting abilities?"

"Of course it is?"

Garrus scoffed and scanned the machine himself.

"I'm rebuilt stronger, faster - better." Shepard rocked on her heels, smirking at the turian.

"Do you know how many hours I put into repairing the MAKO?"

"I was there for some of it."

Garrus turned to her, "Nevermind the repairs in field. I wasn't down there with the damned thing for my health."

A grin caught Shepard's lips, "This one has a VI with a self-repair protocol?"

"Don't worry, she says, it's okay if I crash it," Garrus crossed his arms and stared her down as she mimicked the stance. "Part of me thinks nose-diving into molten lava isn't in its repair subroutines."

"I see what this is really about."

"Do you now."

Shepard's raised her brow, fractured cheeks glowing in the dim light as she said, "You want to drive."

"Wha - no, no I just don't want to be subjected to anymore of your driving."

"Not at all?"

Garrus looked down at Shepard with an exasperated sigh. She maintained her oddly light-hearted air.

"Not even a little bit?"

"No."

Shepard shrugged and motioned to the geth, "Legion - how about you drive the Hammerhead for us? I can transfer the location of our next rendezvous."

Garrus' mandibles flared as the AI walked up beside the Commander, and it was a moment before he blurted, "How come you're letting him drive?"

Crimson-glowing eyes glinting, Shepard hesitated outside the vehicle, "You didn't want to."

Grumbling to himself, it was a moment before Garrus followed them in.


	19. Settle Up

Shepard sat beside Garrus with her elbows on her knees, while on the other side of the shuttle Kasumi and Thane chatted about the particulars of their professions.

The turian tilted his head closer to Shepard and murmured, "Do you know how long it took me to get out of those restraints?"

Offering as innocent a smile as she could muster, Shepard scratched her nose to conceal her words, "An hour or two I hope? You were gone by the time I got back."

"Two hours. Did you watch that vid?" Garrus leant back as he adjusted his armour, murmuring, "I find myself hoping for a head injury so maybe, just maybe, I'll suffer some sort of brain damage and forget it."

Shepard concealed her laughter in a quiet cough as the shuttle docked in the Normandy, "That good, huh?"

Garrus held his words as Thane and Kasumi looked at them and disembarked. Making to follow them, Shepard stopped him with a firm hand on his chest. They could hear the pilot and navigator leaving the shuttle as he peered at her.

"Tell me about it."

Muttering, Garrus shook his head and dryly laughed, "What part of 'lobotomize it out of my brain' didn't you get?"

Closing the shuttle door, Shepard moved towards him with a predatory glint in her eye. Her hands were already on the clasps of his armour, and she stepped in, forcing him back against the seat.

"Maybe I can make it up to you?"

Snapping the armour off his chest and loins before he could stop her, Garrus caught Shepard's hands as the pieces clattered to the floor. "Right here. In the Kodiak."

Shepard lifted her thigh against his loins, grinding closer as his fingers tightened around her wrists, "Yes."

"So you can strip me and leave me naked in here?" Garrus exhaled hard as her thigh pressed again, and he lost grip of her arms.

"Fair enough," Shepard said, another devious grin given as she pulled away most of her armour, letting it drop with what she'd shed of his. "Better?"

Garrus let himself be pushed down onto the seat as he looked her over and finally said, "That works..."

Leaning over him, Shepard ran her hand down the bared plates, soon finding Garrus' growing arousal. Forehead-to-forehead, he sighed as she stroked him against her thigh, knee planted between his legs. Other hand over his fringe, Shepard's caresses moved and undid more of his armour, leaving his cowl and chest bare.

Shepard brushed her teeth down Garrus' neck, eliciting a deep rumble in his frame. Freeing him from the confines of his undergarment, she wrapped her fingers about his shaft with a tight squeeze. He responded, hands up the curve of her waist, talons plying her soft skin.

Tugging down, Shepard kept the movements of her hands slight as she lowered to a knee, dipping her head to his loins. Eyes languidly opening, Garrus caught her shoulder, his voice deep and breathy.

"What - what are you doing?"

Tongue pausing on her upper lip, Shepard looked up as she nuzzled her cheek down the side of his erection, causing him to tense back into the seat and clip away a rumble of approval.

"Making it up to you."

His hand firm as she threatened with parted lips, Garrus groaned, "Ahhh am I the only one Mordin gave a lecture to about our differing er - physiologies?"

"I'll be alright. I won't ingest - entirely." Tilting him in her hand, Shepard kissed the side of his shaft and Garrus whimpered.

"I can't believe I'm trying to stop you, but really Myra - I," Garrus pressed back into the seat, closing his eyes as he felt the foreign softness of her lips brushing further down the side. His voice grew more ragged, "I'd rather not kill you."

Kissing him intimately again, Shepard traced her nose back up the length she held in her palm, breathing, "You're not my first turian, I'll be fine."

"What -" Garrus groaned despite himself, eyes snapping open as he looked in his lap. All the questions in his mind evaporated though as her lips sunk further down, an enveloping wetness like nothing he'd ever felt.


	20. Promise

"I've never seen you like this, Garrus."

The turian turned, his muscles as hard as his expression. He couldn't meet Shepard's gaze, so he paced out of the battery, his voice vibrating and hollow off the walls. "I lost the rest of my team on Omega that day. I want to finish the job."

Shepard nodded, arms crossed as she leaned in the door jam. "We'll track him down if you promise me something."

Garrus turned and snarled at her, easily a head taller, "I'm doing this with or without you, Shepard."

Shepard snatched Garrus by the cowl of his armour, keeping him eye to eye with her, "Why don't you listen to what I damned well say first."

Plucking from her grasp, Garrus went back into the forward battery.

"If someone ever did something like that to me, you can be sure as hell it'd be burnt in my mind to hunt them down." Shepard strolled a few paces away, "Because it would have betrayed the most sacred trust."

Garrus listened without looking at her, chin down and brooding.

"Being part of a crew - part of a team - is a promise, and when you kill together, its written in blood. Being leader imparts a responsibility - but each member has his own head on his shoulders." Shepard walked back to Garrus, "I know you. I know he wouldn't have made it on your team if he wasn't damned good."

"What do you want from me, Shepard?"

"To stop blaming yourself for their deaths."

"It isn't that easy. Just promise and it'll make everything better?"

"I don't have to tell you how many people have died under my command -"

"Shep-"

" - because you know. So don't insult me. What it comes down to is their choice." Shepard's hands nestled on her hips, "It's their choice what they do, and how they deal with what comes."

Garrus turned away, and Shepard continued, "Sidonis put himself under your command - and he turned his back, and betrayed you all. He could have died to try and save you. Maybe I'd never have found you - maybe you'd still be running on Omega. Blame him. Blame all the mercs we killed the day I found you. Blame more yet that we'll kill."

Shepard hesitated, watching the malice bubble under Garrus' armour before she said, "We'll hunt him down if you put it on his shoulders and not yours."

Leaning onto his calibrations terminal, Garrus looked down. When he turned around to speak, Shepard was gone.


	21. MJ

It was the middle of the night and they were docked at Omega for repairs - somehow beyond all odds, they'd made it back. Not everyone, but most of them. The remains of the crew were sleeping after a night of drinking, leaving EDI in charge of systems. They had held a small service before sending the preservation pods - really, they were glorified coffins - onward to their families, friends, and last wishes.

Joker handed the small vaporizer to Shepard, who turned it with a trained ease and did a deep hit. Holding his breath, the pilot watched her, and they each made a face to try and throw the other.

He finally laughed, "I don't know why I ever try to keep up with you."

Shepard's red glowing eyes sparkled, and she smoothly exhaled and said, "Would have thought you'd learnt long ago cripples can't keep up with me."

"Ouch," Joker snorted and sunk deeper into his chair.

They sat for a moment looking out into space. The jagged edges of the station invaded the view, and its lights gave the Normandy a hellish glow.

"Pretty insane, us sitting here, right?"

"Yeah, tell me about it." Shepard's eyes were half-lidded as she gingerly propped her legs up. The brace had come off - she'd fractured her tibia in the fight on the Collector base - and it was still sensitive. She'd have been a lot worse if not for all her own 'upgrades'. Closing her eyes she sighed, a pleasing weight in her limbs and a thickness in her thoughts.

"This is pretty good shit, Joker."

"I know, right?"

"Where'd you get it?"

Joker looked at her with a knowing smirk, "It's medicinal - I'm in chronic pain."

"What - really?'

"Yeah, believe me - I take advantage of that."

Joker took the vaporizer to his lips again, inhaling deeply before handing it to Shepard.

"Chakwas caves - just need to play it right." Joker's expression was serious as it could be, all considering, "Please, I think I broke something in that last flight." He cringed and whimpered, eliciting a laugh from Shepard. "Makes her feel needed."

Shepard shook her head, sunk deep in the navigator's chair, "She does think you need her, Joker."

"I do!" Joker turned in his chair as he added, "She gets me the good stuff that I NEED."

The pair missed the sound of footsteps up the bridge, and it was only as Garrus cleared his throat that Shepard turned slo-motion to look at him. Joker looked back and choked on the drink in his hand.

"What are you two up to?"

"Us?" Shepard crossed one leg over the other, offering a loose smile, "Nothing Officer, promise."

"None of that here." Joker peered at her.

Garrus lifted his ridge brow, glancing through the cockpit before he focused on Shepard again. She was trying to look casual, and doing a much better job of it than Joker was.

"Are you high?"

Shepard coughed a little laugh, shaking her head leisurely as she cut her hand through the air and said, "No sir."

"Uh huh. And if I look a little bit harder, what will I find." Garrus pushed Shepard's chair, and she made an uneasy sound as it spun, her legs pulled off the console. "Maybe I should test those reflexes a bit more."

"Uhp, okay, out of my cockpit. None of that here."

Shepard stood up and laughed as she leant into Garrus, her steps taken with greater care than needed as he led her away. "He said cock."

Garrus sighed, trying not to smile.


	22. Skin

Lying nude beside each other, Garrus reached to run his three-fingered, taloned hand down the slender curve of Shepard's spine. Two things so foreign against each other. She stirred a little, lulled into a place of half-waking.

Garrus hand roamed lower, cupping and squeezing over her ass. It was a careful applied pressure, and it elicited a soft sound from her. He couldn't help but grin at her casual demeanour. She'd never flinched at his advances, or batted away his hand as he explored some curve or plumpness of her body. It was harder to grant her the same freedom.

Shepard's breathing sighed as Garrus pressed his knuckles in, dragging up the shape of her musculature. He followed an errant pattern of scarring. She almost seemed self conscious about it at times - that he did that to her, made her laugh and move in nervous way.

Like some maiden asari fresh off Thessia.

Little did she know how perfect and fascinating Garrus found her to be. Her scars seemed nothing compared to his own, just brushstrokes on the earthy pallet of her body.

Garrus nuzzled into the short strands of Shepard's hair, closing his eyes as he breathed in deep through his mouth. He could taste the way she smelled, her neck, her sex, her - what were they? Breasts. He knew the asari word for them better. Never had he paid them any heed till she'd revealed herself that night.

Linking his arm possessively around her waist, Garrus let his hand stroke over the taut abs that led up to the fleshy mounds. Shepard stirred a little more as he squeezed and tested their give. None of the rest of her felt like they did - but then, all of her was some exotic playground to explore.

The tip of his mandible caught on her ear, and Shepard turned her face into the pillow more. The dark hair curled here and there, short one and two-inch spikes that stood out from her skin in the muted light. Garrus let his hand slip higher, nestled between her breasts, her skin warmer there, but still so cool to his own.

How had they survived to this moment? Past so much, beyond death and hell, and everything unimaginable that had fabricated somehow? And they were here in her bed, in the loft beneath the stars...

And she was wiggling her ass into his crotch.

Clicking a small sound, Garrus nipped at her neck, carefully snatching the skin. Shepard's breathing revived, and he chuckled as her hand came over his own. She guided it over her breast again, plying her nipples with his fingers before dragging them down her side to the giving roundness of her hip. His talons left reddened lines on her skin, but the way she moved only encouraged it, and she breathed his name in a sigh.

Garrus closed his eyes, focusing on his senses, how their bodies fit together, her back into him, some compact powerhouse waking from rest. Shepard turned her head, and he nipped her neck again. This time a richer 'mmm' rose in her chest, and he could feel himself grow, his body responding unthinking to the shift in scents.

Ohhh how she smelled, it was better she didn't know how it controlled him.

A quiet rumble in his throat in response, Garrus slid his hand over the mound of her sex, pulling at her thigh to part her legs. Such simple movements of bodies harkened to the other, unnatural but undeniable. His plates shifted, freeing him, and Garrus tugged her thigh against his, teasing himself close to her core.

If anywhere, she was as hot as him there.

The soft sigh on Shepard's lips warmed into a chuckle as she lazily opened her eyes and whispered to him in the semi-dark, "Round two?"


	23. Dress

A/N: Sorry to say I've been slowing down in writing the vignettes. Used to be I was writing 1-2 a day. Still have some ideas I've been working over though, more to come yet. Thanks for everyone who's been reading and enjoying them, I'm so glad to hear about it.

* * *

Garrus stopped in his tracks by the cupboard, frozen as he lingered on the image he had just seen.

Shepard was in a dress. Black and leather from the looks - and she looked damned good.

That was... unexpected.

Quietly clearing his throat, Garrus turned back to see her still standing outside of the med-bay adjusting her omni-tool.

"That can't be good for the crew."

Shepard looked up and smirked as she saw Garrus approach, "Yea, going all lady-like." Nearby at the dining table she saw Matthews grinning. Shepard motioned to her face with two fingers, "Eyes up here, soldier."

Matthews coughed and looked back to his meal with a hurried, "Yes, ma'am."

"I have trouble seeing that make you less conspicuous - those shoes. How are you even walking?"

Garrus' eyes sparkled as Shepard turned, turning one of her feet onto her toe as she murmured, "I know. I'm going to cause a scene by falling flat on my face and flashing everyone my lady-bits."

"Oh?" Garrus almost laughed, and his voice dropped an octave lower, "Sure you don't need me on the mission?"

Shepard laughed a single 'ha' and smacked Garrus in the arm, drawing an equally wide grin from him. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood."

"Dresses do that? Maybe you should wear that around more often."

Smirking at him, Shepard put her hands on her hip, her omni-tool dissolving away, "Just got all the lines tonight, don't you, Garrus?"

"I don't spend all my time calibrating - equal parts on my witty retorts and cleaning my gun."

Merely smiling with closed lips, Shepard looked up at Garrus as she nodded, before she quietly laughed again. The turian could even hear Matthews clear his throat and avert his gaze.

"That - that didn't come out right."

"I think it came out just fine," Shepard lightly said, still grinning.

"Right. This is why I never leave the battery." Garrus grumbled to himself, turning to go. "Have fun at the party, Commander."

Maybe Kasumi would get some incriminating holos so he wasn't the only one making an ass of himself.


	24. Purgatory

A timed execution from Garrus overloaded the final shield generator, and the crackling orb of defensive barrier fell around Warden Kuril, exposing him to their fire. Shepard's own shield fluttered as more guards targeted her, but she stayed exposed and shot with her SMG as she darted to closer cover.

Shepard's temper spiked, and she turned on the group of guards shooting at her, a quick sequence in her omni-tool setting them all aflame, their screams poignant as the incendiary blast sluiced and burnt through their armour. They were quickly shot by Garrus and Mordin as they stumbled, blinded by fire and the scent of their own charred skin.

Shepard stalked to the turian warden who lay gasping on the ground, his shoulder shredded from her gunfire. Without hesitation, she kicked him upside the head, cracking his mandible with the force and eliciting a sharp cry.

"Who's the shit now, Kuril?" Bending as the turian tried to rise and clatter for his gun, Shepard cuffed the other side of his head with the butt of her pistol. "What were you thinking? Did you really think I'd just waltz into the cell?"

Blue blood spattering with his struggle, Kuril growled and recoiled as Shepard kicked him again, hardsuit cracking hardsuit, "The price they offered - it was more than any of the rest."

"And now it's all gone, and your ship burns." Shepard knelt down onto Kuril's chest, hampering his already laboured breathing. There was more gunfire from behind, and she heard Garrus' call as he sniped another guard. They were all falling.

The ship's sensors and alarms blared, deeper explosions bursting cells and further damaging the flagging security. The cellblock glowed red, its sickly hue matching the light that seeped through the mottled scars on Shepard's cheek.

Warden Kuril struggled under Shepard's weight, and she drew her pistol and shot the tendons in his arms. He screamed as the bullets punched through his armour at point-blank range, his shields already irreparably damaged.

"What are you waiting for?" Kuril's voice had grown more shrill, though the vibrato of his translator warbled his rich voice still. "Finish it already!"

"Mercy is always something I've had a little trouble with." Shepard dropped to straddle his body, listening to him gurgle on his own blood, "I find it amusing you'd ask for it, all considering."

A blade flicked from wrist of her armour with a 'shick', and she swiped and cut part of his fringe. The severed pieces fell flat to the ground, spurting royal blue blood and reigniting Warden Kuril's agonized cries.

"Shepard! We have to get Jack!" Garrus called, rifle primed in his hands as he gunned down another guard, easily holding their position with the salarian at his side.

"You're lucky I'm a busy woman, Kuril." Up on her feet without a word, Shepard discharged her sink and clipped another before letting three bullets crack his skull, scarce looking as she jogged to join her team.


	25. Seedy

"Goddamn I love a good fight." Shepard swiped the chit through the slot and a key was dispensed. She licked the blood from the corner of her cracked lip as she looked at Garrus.

"It felt good to take them out." Garrus followed her up the stairs, and as she unlocked the right door, he knocked her back into the room. His pulse was still running hot, the scent of blood and omni-gel lingering, but overridden by the scent of her. She'd started thinking of this mid-battle, huddled in cover together, whispering over the comm about her body in between shots.

The door slid shut behind him as Garrus shucked his armour, talons snapping over hers to help pull it off. Shepard chuckled and turned around, only to be caught by Garrus.

"What, no foreplay?" Shepard breathed, closing her eyes as his hands raked over her curves.

"We're past that." He growled, urging her forward over the bed of the small, seedy room. There was a slatted window that let in the rusty glow of lights from outside, and the bathroom was an open stall in the corner. This was as nice as motels got on Omega.

Garrus only fumbled a moment as he cut down through the back of her undergarments, his other hand freeing himself. Talons up her back, he pinned Shepard to the bed and steadied himself to thrust into her. He huffed out as he felt the warmth around him, and he tugged his helmet off, tossing it back with a clatter as his hips rocked into motion.

Shepard reached out, moaning into the bed as he set into a harsh pace that smacked his rough hips and thigh against her. She'd goaded him the entire fight, talking about the curve of her hips, her wetness, things she wanted to do - all the while, her aim and deadly precision against the terrorizing vorcha had never faded. The denizens of the ward had scarce a moment to offer thanks before Garrus hauled her onto the transport.

Snaking his hands around her, Garrus lifted Shepard up, and she snuck her knees onto the bed, pushing back into him more. A hand over her breast, he tilted her up, other fingers down her abdomen as he thrust. The gasp of pleasure on her lips was met by his own rumble, and he rest his forehead on the back of her head, the ridged plates on his chest preventing anything closer.

Garrus' talons gripped her breast and he hissed her name, feeling her clench about him. He knew he wouldn't last long, but in the moment he didn't care. As she reached to touch herself, he caught her arm, wrapping it against her. She groaned in frustration, and the tension in her body tightened around him.

All too much, Garrus clutched her to him, his hips flowing into erratic haste as the pleasurable relief washed through him. He gasped out, the sound rasped, and his talon broke through the skin.

Lifting his knee onto the bed beside her, Garrus pulled out and collapsed onto the bed beside Shepard, still possessively holding her to him.

Shepard blinked lengthily, licking her lips as she tried to catch her breath. Between her legs stung, raw and sensitive to the fluid there, foreign and incompatible. She'd grown more used to it - and something about the ache was satisfying.

Grip loosed, Garrus adjusted his arms to embrace her to him, breathing roughly, all the different scents of her skin and body in the air. Something drew his mouth over the curve of words on the bottom of her neck, sitting high on her spine just over the small bump of her vertebrae. He'd seen it before, mostly when she was asleep and his light caresses had gone unnoticed.

Shepard twitched slightly at the touch, her body moving back against him, breathing still unhitched and cheeks flushed. Garrus talons moved, dipping down her stomach to between her thighs, touching where he'd prevented her from doing so.

"Non ducor, duco." Shepard whispered, inhaling deeply as he stirred the throb of her unsatisfied lust. The language wasn't in his translator. She reached to touch him in turn, stroking in time with his ovoid little strokes. "I am not led; I lead."

Murmuring his assent, Garrus nipped into her neck and she stiffened, their bodies grinding together for more.


	26. Poker

EDI hated it when she - or anyone - smoked on board. The tone in the AI's voice as she chided Commander Shepard that night gave enough away. Admittedly, Shepard's time in the Alliance had wired into her the faux pas of the act on a ship - but they weren't Alliance anymore.

And they were playing Skyllian-Five - obviously, cigars were a must. Their rich, sweet aroma filled the space, and there was more than once Garrus wrinkled his nose. His had his own rolled leaf that he'd produced, which smelled like a camel's ass.

Not that Shepard had experience with that, but she imagined it was pretty close.

"You're pretty good at this, Garrus. I think everyone else's got you at a disadvantage."

Most humans couldn't read turians very well, but Shepard had learnt the man's inflections over time.

Shepard adjusted the cards in her hand, sorting them so show the pair and suits. Gabby, Kenneth, Tali, Garrus, Thane and herself were down in the hold. While Tali had been the favourite, the young quarian was actually pretty terrible. They'd been drinking and playing for a few hours, stretching into the small hours while they traversed between star systems in FTL.

The real shark had been Thane. Though as Shepard split the bottle of cognac she'd picked up on the Citadel, his finesse had been slipping.

Shepard threw in her chit for the ante, and the round of betting continued, her eyes following to each person. Donnelly made a crude remark that made her smirk and earned him a slap from Gabby.

"Got a prayer for this one, Krios?" Shepard inquired with a quirked brow as she drew a breath from the cigar in her hand. The smoke seeped out of her nose as she bit onto it.

The drell murmured a reply, his expression stoic as his dark eyes swept up to the Commander. Tali folded her cards, as did Kenneth and Gabby, leaving Shepard with the two snipers.

"Now we see who the real players are." Shepard rolled the thin cigar in her fingers, glowing eyes blinking from Thane to Garrus.

"Never been good at this, Shepard." Garrus picked his cards and placed another meagre bet.

"Should I apologize for my tendency to put you in uncomfortable situations?"

"Damn it, Commander, why set me up like that? You're going to make me say something that you'll kick my arse for." Donnelly shook his head and quieted his mouth with a drink.

"You're doing fine, Garrus." Tali assured him, leaning back to look at his hand.

Garrus pulled his cards away, "You saying that doesn't reassure me. And I'm fine with any position you put me in, Commander. I can take it."

There was a moment before most of the table burst out laughing, and Garrus just grumbled, folding as another round of betting came through. It left Thane and Shepard with the only hands.

"Why do I even open my mouth?" Garrus pushed his chair back and crossed his arms, smirking at Shepard.

Thane bridged his hands together, cards lain face down on the table before him as he met Shepard's gaze with his own stoic mask, unfazed by the burrowing glow of her cybernetics. Shepard tilted her head aside, mimicking him with scarce a grin, and it was a minute before he gathered his sizable stack of chips.

"All in."

"How big's your dick now, Commander?" Donnelly leant her way, only to curse and pull back sharply as her boot connected with his shin, though her façade did little to indicate the movement at all.

"Alright," Shepard swept a hand behind her chits, adding them to the amassed pile, "I call then." She laid her cards down to show the triplet and high card, sitting back to rest her hands on her stomach as she watched Thane.

There was a brief flicker of mischief over the drell's lips before he turned his hand - one number higher. The same fucking hand, same high card, but the triplet was one number higher.

"Shit," Shepard crossed her arms, rocking back on the feet of her chair as she smirked and glowered at Thane. Donnelly laughed and flicked one of the chits on the table towards the drell, who coolly collected them into a stack and pushed back from the table.

"I believe I will retire for the night," Needing both hands to carry the stacks, Thane's eyes sparkled as he focused on the Commander, "And leave you to consider why drell are not permitted in most gambling establishments."


	27. Morinth

"I'm as strong as she is - let me join you!"

The biotic fields about the two asari wavered and crackled with dark energy, pulling glasses off the nearby table and dragging a chair across the floor towards it. Each stood their ground, pouring their minds into their abilities.

"I am already sworn to help you, Shepard. Let us finish this!"

The furniture launched off the ground into the vortex of energy around them, their bodies aglow with blue fire. Shepard had predicted this moment would come, and she stepped in, snatching Samara's arm.

The shock in the matriarch was undeniable.

"Morinth will be more useful to me. Besides, it's only a matter of time until you're hunting me too."

"You will regret your choice." Samara struggled in Shepard's grasp, the biotic fury warping up Morinth's body.

"It's self-preservation," Shepard hissed and released the justicar.

A glowing orb of dark energy blossomed in Morinth's hand, and propelling it forward, struck Samara to the ground. The Ardat-Yakshi advanced with predatory wrath, and her body glowed with biotic power as she seized her mother's throat.

"Goodbye, mother." Arm recoiling, she used the force to snap Samara's neck with a satisfying crunch.

Shepard's jaw hardened as she looked at the body, seeing the poised tension bleed from the Ardat-Yakshi's frame as Morinth stood with her back to her.

"Thank you Shepard. My mother was as powerful as she was hateful." The asari's voice was already back to a trained purr, rising," I can't believe you did this for me," Morinth reached for Shepard's cheek, only to have her forearm caught.

"I did it because I need you more than I do her. And the galaxy needs me."

Morinth's gaze scarce faltered, and her eyes widening as she took in Shepard's features. The admiration and lust was obvious, a zealous sort of gleam. "Of course. Let me take her place on your crew."

"You look a lot like your mother."

The woman's voice changed pitch, perfectly matching that of the former justicar, "And I may sound like her as well. I practised long and hard to mimic her in every way. How do you think I originally escaped from Thessia?"

"I expect you to follow orders and not make trouble for my crew." Shepard turned the asari's arm, forcing her to bend at the knees. The Commander leant in, brushing her lips over her cheek so that her voice was by the Morinth's ear. "That's not going to be a problem, is it?"

Her arm released, Morinth gazed at her as she rose with little bravado, her shoulders relaxed in a confident stance as she admired the Commander, "No problem at all." She nodded back towards where Samara's body lay, "Let me just slip into this horrible uniform, and none will be the wiser."

Back in the streets of Omega, Morinth followed Shepard's steps with regal poise, her eyes ever returning to the athletic curves and odd glow of the human's eyes. A creature with finite life that held her own so strongly - more than anyone she'd encountered in her life. Eyes burning with a fire all their own.

She was worthy prey - one that Morinth could afford to invest time into, waiting for her opportunity and playing to the Commander's demands until the time was right.

Seeing the Normandy through the docking windows, Morinth couldn't help but grin and idly say to Shepard, "This is going to be fun."


	28. Rites

Garrus let his eyes wander as he followed Shepard and Grunt into the club, the thud of the bass growing tenfold as the doors parted. Muted lights of blue and pink accented the stages where asari swayed and gyrated before rapt customers.

When Garrus had suggested it on Tuchanka, he never imagined Shepard would actually do it. Then again, he should have at least suspected it.

"Start with asari?" Shepard said to Grunt over the music.

Huffing his namesake, the tank bred replied, "Think they'd endure it? They seem squishy like you, Shepard."

The Commander snickered and provided the credits for the night. Led through the club, Shepard winked at a certain dancer, who in turn swayed her hip and smacked her bare ass in reply.

Had Shepard been here before? Wait. She was smiling.

"We'll have to see when Phera is free."

"Do we really have time for this, Commander?" Garrus leant close, mandibles twitching as another dancer let her hands flit over Shepard's hardsuit.

"Course we do, Garrus." Shepard looked at him with a hardened, devious glint in her eye, "I've got everyone else running errands, and there are minor repairs underway. That brown dwarf did some damage before we could get out of the gravity well."

Sliding into the booth, Shepard patted Grunt's shoulder, "And we're helping the team!"

"Right. Just a team building exercise."

A server came by and slid an iced drink across the table to Shepard as she chuckled, red-glowing eyes on Garrus, "Exactly. Unless you have something against coming here?"

"Not at all."

Things devolved from there, and Garrus couldn't protest anymore, his glass kept full. It was an ale from Palavan that Shepard had selected – a good one. Had he mentioned it before? How did she know? His thoughts were rather hazy by the time he refocused on Shepard doing body shots off their naked dancer. Their booth had been curtained off for privacy, and Garrus was glad to be sitting in the corner – and in his armour.

Look at her mouth, that pink tongue sweeping through to lap the liquor. What was he doing thinking of what else that dextrous mouth might do...

"Garrus!" Shepard laughed and punched his arm. Her cheeks were flushed.

A human should not be doing this to him.

"Hmm?"

"Enjoying the view?"

Garrus cleared his throat and looked away, only causing Grunt to join Shepard laughing. The young krogan had a dancer catering to him, and he'd ended up talking with her about guns as she writhed against his body.

Looking back, Shepard had the back of her hand to her nose, her eyes liquid and glowing. She raised a brow at Garrus as she took another shot, pointing at the shot glass before him with a cigarette in her hand. He smirked and obliged, not to be out done.

God she could pick them as bad as she could good.

Shepard was close to him when he slammed the glass back down, coughing once at the strength.

"I've got something else planned."

"Oh?" was all Garrus could manage, suddenly catching the scent of her skin, the cigarettes she smoked and the twinge of alcohol. There was more, unknowns, primal things that stirred his loins in his armour.

"For our krogan - there's a female here that he's got an appointment with."

"A krogan?" Garrus' voice hitched as Shepard sat shoulder to shoulder with him.

"Yeah. Infertile, but..."

Garrus smirked and inclined his head to Shepard, "He'll enjoy it, I'm sure - look at him with the asari."

Leaning over, Shepard smacked the dancer's ass, and the asari nudged into Grunt more, before glaring a pout at the Commander.

"Take him, now."

"Eh?" The krogan looked at her and Shepard's eyes sparkled as she lifted a drink to him.

"Have fun, kid."


	29. Horizon

Of all days, Shepard had picked that day on Virmire to stick to the brass and completely ignore any personal feelings. She'd left Ashley to die and ensure the ordinance blew, despite her misgivings about Kaiden. She was a religious nut, but she was still a woman - maybe it'd been a turning point for Shepard.

And Kaiden had thrown it back in her face.

The whiny bitch had always had a thing for her - unrequited. Somehow it was her fault for dying, her fault for being rebuilt by the terrorist organization, her fault that he had held onto something that was never there and let it fester.

The tether was broken now. It was too much of a coincidence that Alenko had been on Horizon when they caught up with the Collectors. He proved what she'd suspected - the Alliance had eyes on her, and not to watch her back. Anderson had lied.

Joker at least had enough sense to stick by her side when she saved his crippled ass. He knew the value of adherence to a real purpose and cause.

Her veins burned as Kaiden walked out of view.

Loyalties. What did Alenko know about loyalty. He'd never had to fight for anything in his life - his schooling was hand picked, his career in the Alliance assured by his biotics, his advancement earned on the tails of her triumph and death.

He was a fucking pussy who ran away when asked to think for himself. Let him get on his knees and take it like they asked - because he was an Alliance man.

"Joker - send the shuttle to pick us up. I've had enough of this colony."

Turning around, Shepard felt Garrus' eyes on her. She looked to where the Collector ship had been, the clouds still disturbed by the turbulence. There was rain in the distance, and the colony was filled with the rumble of thunder that came from afar.

Jack and the turian walked with Shepard out between the colony modules towards the rendezvous.

"I can't believe Kaiden reacted like that." Garrus double-stepped to make it to her side, his long legs letting him match her purposeful stride, "It's people like him that make it harder to do any good for the galaxy."

Shepard rested a hand on her holstered SMG as she walked briskly through the scrambling remnants of the colony. Some heads turned her way, but walking with a turian and a half-naked tattooed woman gave them a wide berth.

"They worry so much about what will happen to them - whose fingers they'll step on -"

Inwardly smirking, Shepard let her eyes fleck to Garrus as they passed a handful of neglected Collector pods. Already there were a few Cerberus crews from the Normandy amongst them, gathering samples and data at Miranda and Mordin's behest.

"Toes?"

"What? All I'm saying is that..." Garrus sighed and crossed his arms, still walking with Shepard as they came in sight of the Kodiak, "... I'm just glad I'm here - with you. I thought more people would be. But it's easier to run and hide than stand up for a fight."

"I don't back down. Even if it's a former enemy placing the bets - I won't blind myself to what's happening."

"I know, Shepard." They hesitated by the lock as the seals hissed and the shuttle opened. "It's why I'll see this through. Collectors, Reapers - till it's done."

"Fuck, get a room," Jack grumbled, sitting on the opposite side of the shuttle from them and propping a foot against the wall.

A smirk briefly cracked Shepard's façade, and she shook her head as the doors sealed and they lifted off.


	30. Undress

Shepard caught the clasps of her armour, backed in against the door to her cabin, and her hitched breath was met with Garrus' own subtle growl as his tongue swirled into her neck. She drew a breath through her teeth, turning her hands on his hardsuit. The bandages down her back burned with the rough pressure against the door.

They were alive, and out of the woods, god they'd lost so many, but they were alive and back in the Terminus system, docked at Omega. Her mind could finally leave the mission after all the untold hours awake, on stims, handling emergency repairs and triage, and just trying to keep people together to make it back from the galactic core. And she had at least a few hours before the meds the doctor gave her started to wear off. Hopefully she'd be fine with the brace off.

"How long for repairs?"

"I don't know," Shepard answered in a breath, more bits of Garrus' combat hardsuit clanking to the floor, "Few weeks."

He rumbled his assent, hand slipping down to catch her thigh and pick her up as they were left in just the simple cloth garments worn underneath. Stepping through the door, it slid shut and locked, and Shepard ran her hand over Garrus' neck, a leg fitting comfortably atop his hips.

"You're always so hot, Garrus." Shepard's mouth found the sensitive traces down his neck, and he murmured about her own cooler temperature.

Then he had her back against the bed, and Shepard cringed as her calf hit the mattress. The compound fracture was mending, medi-gel and weaves healing her with inhuman capability, but it was still sensitive.

Ah fuck, who cared.

Garrus loomed over her, catching a talon in her pants and peeling them off to toss away before sitting her up to take off her tank top. He shucked the shorts he wore and pressed close over her, hovering to breath along her body, the scents of sweat and her sex having become a familiar twinge that spurred his pulse.

He deliberately dragged his mandible over her breast, nipping at the wrinkled nipple and Shepard squirmed. Garrus grinned in reply before pressing his face into the softness, his hard edges biting at the skin.

"We're alive." He whispered, the sound edgy and wavering in his throat. "You're alive."

Elbow by her head, Garrus brushed his hand over her forehead, spiking through her short, dark hair as he looked down her body. Shepard lay for his perusal, and shifting his weight onto his hip, he let his free hand trace down over her body. New scars, lancets of medigel and bandages. The fight had been brutal.

"Hey," Shepard's hand came to his mandible and drew his eyes up to hers. The smirk there faded, replaced by a softness he'd never seen. He'd never seen that look given to anyone.

Shepard's other hand slipped away down his body, and he hissed out a sigh as she intimately touched him, and Garrus' hand tightened, pulling the short strands of hair on her head.

"Sorry. Getting serious, aren't I." The turian's blue eyes opened to hers, returned from their distant inventory of her skin and body.

"Don't worry, just keep talking and you'll have your foot worked back in there."

Garrus laughed once, and they both lay onto their sides, even as she continued to tease his mid-way arousal. Eyes half-lidded, Shepard watched his expression, dragging her toes up his shin and spur. His eyes closed, and their foreheads touched as his breath came unevenly.

"I don't think I could have made it through you dying again."

"Then I'll take you down with me next time." Shepard replied in an equal whisper, and her breath traced up his neck, stroking him in against her thigh and drawing a groan from him.

Tracing his hand up her hip, Garrus moved from her hand and suddenly filled her, their bodies connected, breath tripping at the satisfaction. Shepard's hand fled up his chest, light touches between the thick plating, heeding the sensitive skin before they made it up to his fringe, and he nearly purred.

Shepard rolled atop him, letting her weight sink as her eyes closed, and she subtly moved her hips, leg screaming. Letting his talons trace up her back, Garrus pinned her close, and for once there was no resistance. Her breasts conformed to the hard edges, their bodies an unnatural fit, but with his arms around her, he knew she was real, that this peculiarity wanted to be next to him.

"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."

Her hand was on his mandible again. Tenderness. Where had this come from? Why did it tighten his gut? She was off him now, and Shepard sat up in the bed, pulling Garrus into her. His face mushed against her breast and abdomen, cowl fitting above the crook of her hip, and he sighed out.

"Couldn't get rid of me if you tried."

Shepard stroked her fingers delicately along his fringe, and Garrus lay his talons over her thigh, dark edges on pale softness once more.

"Wouldn't ever try."


	31. Affections

Sitting at the mess with Tali, Garrus eyed where Shepard had disappeared to a half hour ago.

"Trying to glare a hole through the bulkhead?"

It was a moment before the turian's gaze pulled back to the quarian, "What?"

Turning over the compact hardware of the omni-tool in her hands, Tali chided, "You're staring over there like it offends you."

Garrus looked back at the haptic terminal they had open, keying in a sequence as Tali modified the circuitry, "Have you noticed how much time Shepard has started spending with Samara?"

"She spends time with all the crew."

"She didn't spend time with Samara before they killed her daughter."

Tali switched tools, scanning through magnifications in her helmet. With a steady hand, she added to the power modulator as she murmured, "It was probably quite traumatic for her. Can you imagine killing your own daughter?"

"I suppose." Garrus didn't sound convinced.

"Try the new vectors now."

The holo-display churned through the tests, and Garrus' omni-tool glowed to life in Tali's hand.

"Looks promising."

"Told you I wouldn't break it," Tali scoffed. Garrus grunted in reply before she said, "We'll do the others as well."

"Alright."

Brooding, Garrus calibrated the next set of vectors, going through unlocking the device as Tali reassembled his omni-tool and dismantled the next. They worked in efficient silence before she spoke again.

"Maybe if she knew how you felt she wouldn't spent so much time in the observation lounge."

"What?" Garrus asked, hands dropping from the haptic interface as his mandibles flared.

"Come on, Garrus, give me some credit. You think I don't notice you two?" The quarian tilted her head to look at him, amused, "You flirt with her more than anyone."

"I'm not flirting."

"Right."

Garrus' mandible twitched as he cast the quarian a frustrating glare. Tali merely continued to work and the light on her helmet flickered with her words.

"She just has a lot of people vying for her." Tali stopped her work. "You already lost her once."

Garrus looked at his talons on the table, a sudden flare of anger in him. He was on his feet towards the battery when he coldly said, "We'll finish this later."

In the opposite direction, Shepard stood by the wide window looking out into space, adjusting her uniform. Morinth was reclined nearby, her breasts exposed, thrust up by the diving neckline of the black justicar suit.

The asari ran her hands up her body, reigning in her breath and the frantic lust of her dark need. It had taken all of her will not to let her eyes swim with inky blackness and try to pull Shepard in – the consequences would have been harsh. She was left flustered and unsatisfied.

Morinth doubted her ability to snare the Commander, and felt trapped by the woman's cruel charisma. There had rarely been any trouble swaying her targets – her lovers, her worshippers. This – this weakness was another drug. She was not weak, only the weaker.

Imagine if this woman had centuries to hone herself. So much force after only a blink of time.

Morinth sighed and adjusted her uniform, feeling Shepard's eyes on her again.

"I should get you dancing for me."

"You'd only have to ask, Shepard." Morinth smirked and leaned her arm over the back of the couch, "Turn up the bass, and we can dance – just the two of us."

Eyes dark, Shepard glanced at Morinth and said, "I didn't mean us – or in private." Checking her omni-tool, she scarce acknowledged the asari as she made for the door. "I need to go for a run."

Morinth could only stare at the door as it closed behind Shepard, an odd mix of anger, lust, and obsession in her gut.


	32. Drinks

Garrus meandered through the seedy underbelly of Afterlife - seedy could very equally describe the entirety of Omega, honestly. They were early, but he was still on the lookout for the contact they were supposed to meet. His eyes swept through the bar.

Where had Shepard gone?

As if in reply, Garrus' comm sparked to life, Mordin's caffeinated voice there, "Garrus - Shepard has been compromised."

"What? Where are you?"

It was then Garrus saw the salarian's white uniform and pushed his way through the dancers towards the door. Mordin was struggling to hold Shepard in his arms, and the turian quickly took over the weight.

"What happened?"

"Shepard had a drink - though, suspect not merely alcohol consumed." With the Commander's weight in Garrus' arm, Mordin scanned her as they dragged her out the back of the club. Her frame tremored in his grasp and Garrus cursed to himself.

"Damn it, I should have told her not to drink anything in there!"

Mordin motioned and they lay her down, and he quickly clicked a phial from the compartment at his waist and injected it into her hardsuit. "Fortunate I am here."

"Shepard - Shepard! Open your eyes."

Shepard collapsed to a knee, and her head lolled as she steadied a hand against the floor, soon vomiting up the fluid in her stomach.

"Interesting reaction. Effects of toxicity curious. Bears further study."

She groaned, and Garrus steeled a hand on Shepard's shoulder as she almost pitched forward into the mess.

"I should have warned you, Shepard. I'm sorry."

Hanging her head, Shepard gave it a shake as her vision swam, her stomach turning again, "Warned me - ugh, how much did I drink?"

Lifting her head as a man approached, and Shepard's expression darkened as he went on about how the batarian bartender with a grudge against humans - and had poisoned her. She didn't doubt her Cerberus modifications and Mordin's quick administration of a an emetic that she'd survived - even if her stomach and head still felt like she'd been at ground zero.

Staggering up to her feet, Shepard nodded to the man and murmured, "Sounds like he needs a taste of his own medicine."

"Give that batarian bastard what he deserves."

Batarians. What were they good for? Fodder for her gun for the lives they lived.

A little unsteady on her feet, Shepard batted away Garrus' steadying hand as she clomped back towards the bar.

"We should get you to Dr. Chakwas, Shepard."

"I'll be fine. Him, on the other hand." Heavily lashed eyes turned Garrus' way, steeled and cold before she smiled uncharacteristically bright and sauntered up to the batarian bartender.

Leaning onto the bar, Shepard motioned for a drink and said, "How about a drink for a lady?"

"Do I know you - ah nevermind. Here. On the house."

The music thumped around them as he poured a drink and slid it half-way across the bar, only to be met with the visage of Shepard's pistol propped on the counter towards him. She motioned to the glass with the barrel, casually stepping back.

"Wha - but you should be dead! You don't want me to -"  
"Drink it," Shepard seethed, "Or I'll rent a room just for you, me and my imagination that'll have you wishing you had."

"No - I can't I -"

"Drink it, or I'll be blinding you one eye at a time - after I cut the lids off." Shepard met the bartender's panicked gaze, expression distasteful, "And that'd barely be one round."

Even in the low light, the sweat was visible on his brow above his double set of eyes. The bartender placed both hands on the counter, looking down at the glass as Shepard slid it his way. Without bravado, he snagged the cup and threw it back in one gulp.

Shepard crossed her arms, her satisfied smirk the last thing he saw as his muscles twitched in an involuntary spasm, and he collapsed to the ground.


	33. Dreams

The bed moved beside him, and Garrus opened his eyes. Only shapes were visible in the low light, and the deep rooted, floundering gasp that broke the quiet more fully drew him from the muffled fog of sleep.

"Myra?" he croaked, turning, only to sit up as Shepard trembled beside him. A sibilant murmur of unknowns melded into another choked sound, and Garrus touched her shoulder.

She was still asleep.

It was the first full night she'd let him stay, both exhausted from the long day of repairs in engineering and the cargo hold. More, it was the first time she'd fallen asleep with him for any length of time. The orange glowing clock on the bedside showed it to be early morning.

Shepard's back arched, muscles down her body tensing and twisting the sheets.

Garrus shook her, "Myra - Shepard, wake up."

The Commander's eyes blinked open, lethargy giving way as she woke. Feet on the mattress, she pushed herself to sit up against the headboard.

"Are you alright?" Garrus turned the bedside light on, and it allowed him to see how pale she was, a sheen of sweat covering her.

Licking her lips, Shepard closed her eyes and threw back the covers, standing as she quietly said, "Fine." She was up the stairs into the bathroom by the time Garrus rose. "Don't turians dream?"

Garrus lingered on the stairs, naked just as she was, "Yeah - most sentient species do."

Shepard splashed her face with cold water, exhaling out as she ran her wet hands through her short hair. Pressing her palms onto either side of the sink, she hung her head down.

"What are they about?" Garrus took another step closer, unfolding his arms to lean in the door jam.

"Everything," Shepard filled a glass with water and downed it. Closing her eyes, an 'ah' escaped as she knocked the glass back down, clutching the sink again to steady herself.

Tentatively, Garrus put his hand over hers, and Shepard's head tilted to look at it, posture rigid again as she pulled herself up.

"Come fight me?" she whispered, pulling herself away and squeezing by him to take the steps in one go, her breasts swaying as she reached for her undergarments.

"Now? No - we were just sleeping."

Shepard pulled the supportive bra over her head, looking at him with a ghostly chill, "I don't sleep more after that."

"Then just stay," Garrus murmured, "I'll spar you later. We don't have to sleep. I like just being with you."

Looking at him as she pulled her panties up the whole way, Shepard hesitated. Her features had hardened, her muscles tense, such a quick change from the trembling delicate thing she had been in bed beside him. He kept seeing more, the sides no one else would see, that brought her down from the heights, that smoothed away the furrows and buttered him.

Garrus sat on the bed and pulled her back into him, and he could feel her tense even as she rested cheek on his cowl. She sighed, breath against his skin, and slowly his knuckles crept up her back.

She felt small.

"Alright," she whispered, "I'll kick your ass later."


End file.
